The Challenge of Speed

In a study called ‘The Challenge of Speed’ conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, and sponsored by Ricoh, 73 per cent of senior executives across Europe reveal that their companies need to be faster in order to adapt to changing business conditions.

The report also highlights how European companies across a range of industries are responding to the challenges of enhancing business agility and what steps they should take to be faster.

In addition to a series of interviews, the survey sample included 461 senior, Europe-based executives. Almost half (49 per cent) are C-level or above and a further 23 per cent are SVPs, VPs, or directors.

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As financial services organisations juggle conflicting demands from consumers, regulators, and shareholders, the must also navigate the challenge of adapting to change faster. Retail, corporate and investment banks, as well as insurance businesses, are using technology extensively to operate faster - more than in any other industry. However, as unconnected legacy systems continue to slow them down, there is an urgent need to further review technology assets and simplify core information and document processes.

When considering how fast they can adapt to change, European business leaders are three times as likely to compare their company to a speed boat (48 per cent) than a super tanker (17 per cent), while believing the opposite of their competitors. The reality is, as they seek to change faster, they are being clouded by the triple challenge of a rapidly evolving workforce, technology-led disruption and the underlying core business processes that ensure change is sustainable.

European healthcare executives predict that technology will be the biggest driver of business change over the next three years. However, they are wary that in driving rapid change the biggest areas at risk are 1) technology itself and crucially 2) R&D.

They are also fragmented when it comes to agreeing which areas are most crucial to change. But when specifically considering where they expect to see the most change in the next three years, the most cited response is improving their core business processes.

European education leaders believe they need to change faster now than they have done over the last three years, with almost all (98 per cent) feeling under pressure to adapt rapidly. However, they are energised about and consider augmented reality as one of the leading technologies able to improve their organisation’s performance and enhance the student experience.

Their key areas of concern to quickly changing for the future are focused on back office activity. The top two bottlenecks to achieving greater agility are difficulty in getting employees, business units, or functions to adopt a common approach (44 per cent) and bureaucratic decision making processes (35 per cent).

Just 27 per cent of government executives currently feel significant or extreme pressure to adapt to rapid change. However more change is on its way. The expects 50 per cent of citizens and 80 per cent of businesses to interact with the government digitally by 2015 and citizens continue to demand easier ways to communicate with government bodies.

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